In Lockdown 6: Chronicles and Comments
We continue telling you about our visit to the DLNP Metrology Laboratory.
Applications of a precision laser inclinometer, developed by scientists from the Section of Laser Metrology of the DLNP Experimental Department of Multiple Hadronic Processes, are quite diverse. We already wrote how the device is used in physical mega-science facilities—colliders and gravitational telescopes.
Laser inclinometers can help in applied fields as well, for example, to predict earthquakes in active seismic regions. Devices installed across the dangerous area monitor landscapes and determine areas where changes were speeded up or slowed down. When changes speed up, seismic energy accumulates, and one day it can cause an earthquake.
Laser inclinometers determine beforehand a locality where dangerous stress was accumulated and an approximate time when earthquake shocks can strike the area. This distinguishes inclinometers from seismographs, which record dangerous vibrations immediately before an earthquake. Considering that foreshocks not necessarily occur, the inclinometer can become the most valuable device in predicting cataclysms.
Another inclinometer application field is monitoring bridges, skyscrapers, tunnels, overhead roads and other constructions of this kind in use. Inclinometers are able to detect changes which can cause a breakdown.
However, the most impressive challenge that the Sector employees seek to solve using an inclinometer is to increase measurement precision of the gravitational constant. At present, it is several orders of magnitude lower than the measurement precision of other physical quantities. What can we achieve in practice? For instance, the more precise calculation of distant space flight trajectories, which will permit taking aboard less corrective fuel.
These were intriguing and important objectives which employees of the Section of Laser Metrology are striving for. We wish scientists further success in reaching them!
News of the laboratory
